The informal Walkable City book club had a good discussion on Wednesday evening. There were only four of us, but we filled up the time with thoughts and questions about parking in the city.
To the question of what is the next action that could be taken, answers were:
create red curb offsets at every intersection, reducing parking by one space or so, to increase visibility between walkers, bicyclists and drivers
change parking rates so that garages are utilized more, getting cars off street parking
adjust the hours and areas of metered parking so as to cover evenings and ensure parking turnover even after the workday
The next book club meeting will be Wednesday, June 14, 6:00PM, at Lefty’s Taproom, 5610 Elvas Ave, Sacramento, CA 95819. The patio area has some shade umbrellas and misters to cool us off. And cold beer, of course.
Discussion will be on Step 4: Let Transit Work (page 139 in the second edition). We hope you will join us!
The SACOG Regional Bike Share Policy Steering Committee met this week on Monday (agenda). This was the first meeting of the committee in quite some while, long enough that the staff member did not remember when the last one was. The committee is almost entirely new people since the last meeting. Members are: Alberto Ayala (Sac Metro Air Quality District), James Corless (SACOG), Dawnté Early (City of West Sacramento), Caity Maple (City of Sacramento council member D5), Katie Valenzuela (City of Sacramento council member D4), and Chair Josh Chapman (City of Davis).
There was a presentation by SACOG staff Nicole Zhi Ling Porter on the status of bike share/scooter share (or micromobility) in the region, as well as questions that the policy committee will help answer. The main question is the ownership and operations model, with three options”
privately owned and operated (the current model)
publicly owned and operated
publicly owned and privately operated (under contract)
These are not exclusive categories. Several existing bike share programs have detail models for operations, using some sort of public/private partnership.
The City of Davis and UC Davis are undertaking a study to determine the model they want to use and the operators. They did not rejoin the regional program after the pandemic shutdown. It has apparently not been decided that they will not rejoin the program, but they wanted to consider other options. There may be an announcement about this in the near future.
The current bike share fleet is about one-third the number of bikes that were available before the pandemic, which was about 900. Sacramento was in fact the most successful bike share system in the country, as measured by number of rides per bike per day. The system is now an also-ran.
Several committee members mentioned that rental costs were now much higher, and that was probably depressing use. I have to admit that I am a Lime Access member, meaning that I don’t pay for individual rides of up to 30 minutes, so I have not noticed the per-minute fees.
I was the only public person in attendance in the room. One person spoke on Zoom, but I have not way of knowing if there were more people observing on Zoom. Note that I am a user of the bike share, not of the scooter share, and don’t have much perspective on scooters, I expressed these concerns, which I hope committee will address:
Instability: The unannounced shutdown of the system at the beginning of the pandemic was not the desire of the public, which wanted to continue using the bikes. This type of issue, determined solely on the whims of the operator/owner, is not acceptable to the users, and any new policy must address this issue.
Maintenance: The bikes are not being maintained to an acceptable level of good repair. About 1/4 of the bikes I try to rent are unrideable for various reasons, about 1/4 are rideable but have significant issues, and about 1/2 are more of less OK.
Distribution: The agreement between the operator/owner requires that some bikes be distributed/rebalanced into low income neighborhoods within the service area (many are not in the service area, but some are). My observation, both from being on the streets and checking the app, indicate that this is not being done.
Transit integration: The JUMP bike share system was for a time somewhat integrated with transit. Bike charging stations were located at a number of light rail stations. But when Uber took over the system, these charging stations were removed. So there is no integration at this time. Bike share and transit can complement each other in critical ways, but the current system is operating without that insight. There are a few systems in the country where the transportation/transit agency also operates the bike share system, Los Angeles Metro for example. Though this system is not perfect, the integration is noticeable, and the rental rates are significantly below that of private systems.
More information on the curb extensions (bulb outs) being installed on the northeast and southeast corners of the intersection of 19th Street and O Street, as part of the Central City Mobility Project. I questioned this location for curb extensions because 19th Street with have a parking protected separated bikeways on the left side (southbound) of 19th Street. (Central City Mobility update)
I received a response from the engineering firm for the project:
This is in response to your inquiry as to compatibility of the subject intersection revisions and parking protected bike lane. The design does account for the bulb outs at the intersection. Unfortunately, due to the space restrictions resulting from the bulb outs, it won’t be possible to provide parking protected all the way around the bulb outs. However, we are providing a transition of the bike lane at the intersection. Please take a look at the following striping design for the intersection. North is to the right with 19th Street running left to right. Hopefully this will give you a better feel for the plan:
Any reader of this blog will know that I love curb extensions. What confuses me is why this location would have been selected by the city over many other potential locations. Perhaps some of the reason it that the crossing at O Street has a moderately high walker count, but does not otherwise have a traffic signal or pedestrian signaling such as a RRFB. It is possible that the city thought these four corner curb extensions to be the most practical way of increasing safety for walkers and bicyclists crossing at this point.
The design of bringing the separated bikeway out adjacent to the general purpose travel lane, as a bike lane, is not ideal but not particularly unsafe. In fact some bicyclists prefer this design, because it increases the visibility of bicyclists by motor vehicle drivers, so that they are not ‘hidden’ behind parked cars. Though daylighting of the intersection approach can accomplish the same objective.
I would like to see green skip paint continuing through the intersection in the bike lane. These are often painted as discontinuous green rectangles with sharrows stenciled on top, called green-backed sharrows. The sharrows are out of favor with most bicyclists and some traffic engineers, I think this is a valid use of them. The main purpose of green paint (it has no legal meaning) is to increase driver awareness of bicycle facilities by highlighting conflict points, and this is definitely a conflict point.
I live close to Fremont Park in Sacramento’s central city. I walk through the park every day I’m in town, often multiple times. That means I’m crossing through the bounding intersections of P Street & 15th Street, Q Street & 15th Street, Q Street & 16th Street, and P Street and 16th Street, multiple times a day. I also spend a lot of time at Naked Lounge on the southeast corner of Q Street and 15th Street, and some time at Karma Brew on the northwest corner of P Street and 16th Street. That gives me a front row seat to watching the behavior of drivers at these intersections. On nearly every signal cycle, I seem a driver running the red light at each of these intersections. This is not a the exception, it is the rule. By running the red light, I don’t mean entering the intersection on yellow and finishing on red, I mean entering the intersection on red. I mean drivers that are intentionally endangering themselves, other drivers, bicyclists, and walkers. Every signal cycle.
Though I’m an able-bodied and aware walker, Fremont Park is also used by a lot of homeless individuals, families using the playground, people sitting on the benches and reading, people lying on the grass and enjoying the sun (finally) and enjoying the shade (now), people participating in a number of organized recreation activities such as yoga, and of course the festivals such as Chalk It Up. This is a place that should be safe to get to for everyone. It is not currently.
Let me state up front that I am NOT in favor of the enforcement of traffic laws by armed police officers. I have seen first-hand the way in which traffic stops are used to harass and oppress people of color and low income. I have read and seen innumerable accounts of officers murdering the people they stop on pretext. Armed law enforcement is the problem, not the solution. On the other hand, I am strongly in favor of automated enforcement. It is my theory that most serious traffic violations are by a small number of egregious drivers. Automated enforcement can ticket these drivers, which will change the behavior of some of them, but not of many of them who are high income drivers of high end vehicles. It does, however, allow law enforcement to identify repeat offenders and hold them accountable with vehicle confiscation and drivers license suspension.
I want there to be red light enforcement cameras installed on at least one of the four intersections at Fremont Park. My observations indicate that the intersection of Q Street and 15th Street is the worst. I looked on the city’s Red Light Running Program page to see if there was a mechanism for submitting requests. No. I looked at the city’s 311 app to see if there was a place to submit a request. Not really. The closest I could find was to select Streets > Traffic Investigation, and then Signals (see screenshots below). I’ll update this when I get a response (though these days most 311 reports get no response at all).
screenshots from Sac311 app
The other way of request that might be effective is to directly contact city council members.
One of the elements of the Central City Mobility Project is the conversion of 5th Street from a one-way, two-lane street, to a two-way, one-lane each direction street. Some work is underway: wiring and signal bases have been installed for the signals necessary for two way traffic at the existing signal locations. Looking at the bases, photo below, I’m guessing that there will be new signal poles and mast arms, not re-use of the existing signals equipment. That seems like a waste of money to me, but the city loves to spend money on new signals, and signal controllers.
I am not sure that many of the current signal locations are even needed. After the conversion, 5th Street will be a lower speed and probably lower volume street. Four-way stops at some major cross streets (such as T Street) might work just fine. Again, the city loves to spend money on signals, and already has unneeded signals at a number of locations (too many traffic signals?).
5th St and T St new signal base
The Central City Mobility Project map shows the 5th Street conversion as extending from Broadway to I Street. The block between Broadway and X Street is already two-way, as are the two blocks between L Street and J Street (the DOCO underpass). It is also two-way north of I Street.
I wonder what, if anything, will be done for the block between X Street and W Street, under the Hwy 50 freeway. This is a very complex block, with a freeway onramp west of 5th Street and a freeway offramp west of 5th Street. The onramp and off-ramp have separate signal phases from X Street and W Street. Traffic westbound onto the ramp, if it makes the green light, is already traveling at freeway speeds, about 65 mph as it crosses 5th Street. Similarly, but not as egregious, the off-ramp traffic, if it makes the green light, is traveling a bit below freeway speeds. I am really not sure how this complex situation can be made safe for bicyclists. Northbound bicyclists only have to deal with drivers running the red light at 5th Street from W Street, but southbound bicyclists would have to deal with multiple turning vehicle movements. In general, the only way to make complex situations like this safe is to have exclusive bicycle phases in which only bicyclists and walkers are moving, no vehicle movement or turns are permitted. But the city is very unlikely to select that safe alternative because it would lengthen the signal cycles and therefore slow motor vehicle traffic to some degree. The city doesn’t want to slow motor vehicle traffic.
The diagram below, from Google Maps, indicates the complexity of this block, but the reality on the ground is even worse.
So the neglect of the Central City Mobility Project for fixing these two blocks of I Street is disturbing. Of the people riding on I Street anywhere west of 16 Street, probably 50% are going to Sacramento Valley Station. But if you spend time on I Street looking for bicyclists, you won’t see many. The average bicyclist won’t ride on I Street. They are uncomfortable with the volume and speed of motor vehicle traffic, but more importantly, they are scared to death of these two one-block sections with only sharrows. So they drive to, or have someone drop them off at, the station. Sacramento Valley Station is the most important transit hub in the city, in the county, and in Northern California outside of the Bay Area, yet the city has neglected access to the station.
The TIRCP grant for improvements at Sacramento Valley Station may improve access from the station on H Street, but again, that is not a near term project, and it is not clear how effective it will be. Probably 80% of the riders on H Street are coming from the station. (Sac kill those sharrows on H St, H St bicycle fixes)
My observation of bicyclist numbers and destinations is based on observation and talking to some riders. It would be nice if the data were available, but I don’t have it, and apparently the city doesn’t have it, or at least has never shared it publicly. I know that the city purchased cell phone data several years ago that would have allowed them to see bicyclist patterns, but so far as I know, they only used it for motor vehicle drivers patterns.
I St shadows between 10th St and 9th St, Sacramento
As stated earlier, I have stopped using Twitter. When I had my blog linked to Twitter, each post I made automatically generated a tweet, and that is what drove most of my views and readers to the blog. Without that, I am getting far less traffic to my blog. I’m not regretting the decision, but since I post to educate and harangue (and for my own amusement, to be honest), fewer readers means less education and harangue.
So, in order to generate more views and readers, I ask you to comment on the posts. You may of course use your real name and email address, but if you don’t want to do so for personal or work-related reasons, feel free to make up a name – ‘Joe Reader’, and email address – ‘joe@blogreader.com’. So long as the post is constructive and on topic, I will approve it (and not one of the very few prohibited subjects; helmet wars are the only one I can think of at the moment). You can say something simple, like ‘interesting’. You can present contrary points of view, or things I neglected to think of. You can of course agree. And you may provide links to other resources that people would want to know. Keep it constructive, and I welcome it!
Yes, I have thought about using another platform such as Mastodon, but just have not had the time to research that option.
The City of Sacramento’s Central City Mobility Project is underway, and projected to finish by next May. The map below shows the major components of the project: new parking protected separated bikeways on 19th Street and 21st Street between W Street and I Street, extended parking protected separated bikeways on P Street and Q Street from 15th Street to 21st Street, a separated bikeway (not parking protected?) on I Street from 21st Street to 12th Street, and conversion of 5th Street from a one-way street to two-way from Broadway to I Street (the two-block section from L Street to J Street is already two-way). The project also includes upgrades of corner ramps to ADA compliance along 21St, 19th, P, Q and I streets. I notice that ramp upgrades are also occurring at some locations other than these streets, whether under this project or a separate initiative, I’m not sure.
Central City Mobility Project map
As far as it goes, this project looks to be great. The city is making an effort to create a grid of higher quality bicycle facilities in the central city, of a mile spacing, or less. But a bicycle network is only as good as it’s weakest spot, and this project leaves several weak spots in the grid. The map below highlights some of these, shown in cyan color:
P Street and Q Street parking protected separated bikeways should be extended west to 5th Street, which would include a reduction of lanes on those streets. Stopping the bikeways at 9th and 10th Street reduces access to Sacramento Valley Station, as well as many other destinations in this area, including using the Tower Bridge to access West Sacramento.
9th Street parking protected separated bikeways should be extended from Q Street south to Broadway, to provide access to the higher quality bikeway along Broadway, and points south of Broadway.
I Street separated bikeway should be extended from 12th Street west to 5th Street, created a complete bikeway from 21st Street to Sacramento Valley Station.
J Street parking protected separated bikeway should be extended east from 5th Street to 19th Street, to proved a complete bikeway from 5th Street to 28th Street.
A separated bikeway should be constructed on 28th Street to provide a high quality bike route parallel to the unsafe 29th Street one-way southbound traffic sewer and 30th Street one-way northbound traffic sewer.
Regular bike lanes, at a minimum, should be installed on 13th Street between P Street and Capitol Park. 13th Street is one of the most heavily bicycled north-south routes in the entire central city, but this two block gap makes that trip less safe.
It is also possible that the P Street and Q Street bikeways should be extended east at least to 28th Street, or beyond, but I haven’t looked closely at that yet.
Central City Mobility Project map with recommended additionsRead More »
As the perfect follow-on to my post yesterday about Parking reform for Sacramento, an post today on Streetsblog USA: Here’s a Big Idea: The Larger the Car, the More You Pay to Park the Damn Thing, about a neighborhood in Montreal charging for residential parking permits by the weight and and fuel source of the vehicles. The program is intended to not just get people into small vehicles, or cleaner vehicles, or no vehicles, but to get people to think about the impact on climate and safety of their choice of vehicle. So, I’ve added that idea to my list.
The graphic below actually does not really show the huge difference between older light trucks, or SUVs, but it is a good graphic to start with.
The repaving of 21st Street between W Street and I Street is complete. The section has been marked with ‘temporary road marker tabs’ (these have various names). The marking is for parking lanes on both sides, of eight to ten feet, and ultra-wide general purpose travel lanes, of at least 16 feet. No bike lanes were marked, though the street previously had marked bike lanes. A typical move on the part of the city and its contractors, to take care of motor vehicle travel and parking, but forget about bicyclists. This is of course temporary, but state and federal law require accommodation of bicyclists in construction zones. No such accommodations was made.
21st St between J St and I St, ultra-wide travel lanes, parking lanes, NO bike lanes
There are temporary paint markings for the first several blocks north of W Street, showing what the paint configuration will be. The parking protected separated bikeway is, as was likely, on the left side because most of this stretch has bus service on the right. The bike area is about seven feet wide. The buffer strip of about three feet wide, and the parking lane is about eight feet wide. The buffer may or may have vertical delineators (soft hit posts) continuously or at conflict points. There is no indication at any location, so far, that there will be hard curbs to actually protect bicyclists when parked cars are not present. For information on why a seven foot bikeway is not sufficient, please see bike lane widths. NACTO recommends at least eight feet.
21st St temporary marking for separated bikeway
As I rode up 21st Street, I noticed that the bus stop is marked in the same way that the parking lane is. I hope this is just a temporary mistake, otherwise there will be parking in the bus stop despite the red curb. The city is still failing to do two things it can to better support transit: 1) install concrete bus pads so that the weight of the bus at the stops does not distort the pavement and cause potholes, and 2) paint the pavement red at each bus stop so as to make it clear that this is a place for buses only, and not private vehicles. And, yes, it would be nice if transit islands were installed so that the bus does not need to pull out of and then into traffic. The city keeps saying that it supports transit, but doesn’t actual do anything to support transit.
21st St bus stop, marked as though it were a parking lane
Lastly, in the category of ‘be careful what you wish for’… I had wondered why the city was not taking advantage of the ADA ramp project to put in curb extensions (bulb-outs) at some critical intersections for walker safety. This afternoon, I noticed that they are putting in curb extensions on the northeast and southeast corner of 19th Street and O Street. Yay? Nay? The problem is that the location of the extensions would extend into the separated bikeway on the left side of 19th Street southbound. The photo below, looking north along 19th Street at O Street, shows the extension under construction. There is supposed to be a curb-adjacent, parking protected separated bikeway here. I assume that bus stops for SacRT Route 62 southbound will be on the right hand side of the street, and the separated bikeway on the left hand side. Is there anyone paying attention? Anyone? Ferris? Anyone?
Getting Around Sacramento 